The Fern Lover's Companion eBook

CLIMBING FERN. HARTFORD FERN

Lygodium palmatum

“And where upon the meadow’s
breast
The shadow of the thicket lies.”
BRYANT.

Fronds slender, climbing or twining, three to five
feet long. The lower pinnae (frondlets) sterile,
roundish, five to seven lobed, distant in pairs with
simple veins; the upper fertile, contracted, several
times forked, forming a terminal panicle; the ultimate
segments crowded, and bearing the sporangia, which
are similar to those of curly grass, and fixed to a
veinlet by the inner side next the base, one or rarely
two covered by each indusium. (From the Greek meaning
like a willow twig [pliant], alluding to the flexible
stipes.)

[Illustration: Climbing Fern. Lygodium palmatum]

Fifty years ago this beautiful fern was more common
than at present. There was a considerable colony
in a low, alluvial meadow thicket at North Hadley,
Mass., not far from Mt. Toby, where we collected
it freely in 1872. Many used to decorate their
homes with its handsome sprays, draping it gracefully
over mirrors and pictures. It was known locally
as the Hartford fern. Greedy spoilers ruthlessly
robbed its colonies and it became scarce, at least
in the Mt. Toby region. In Connecticut a
law was enacted in 1867 for its protection and with
good results. But as Mr. C.A. Weatherby states
in the American Fern Journal (Vol. II, No. 4),
the encroachments of tillage (mainly of tobacco, which
likes the same soil), are forcing it from its cherished
haunts, thus jeopardizing its survival. Doubtless
an aggressive agriculture is in part responsible for
its scarcity in the more northern locality. It
is still found here and there in New England, New York
and New Jersey; also in Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida,
but is nowhere common. The fertile portion dies
when the spores mature, but the sterile frondlets
remain green through the winter. A handsome species
for the fernery in the house or out of doors.

IV

ADDER’S TONGUE FAMILY

OPHIOGLOSSACEAE

Plants more or less fern-like consisting of a stem
with a single leaf. In Ophioglossum the
leaf or sterile segment is entire, the veins reticulated
and the sporangia in a simple spike. In Botrychium
the sterile segment is more or less incised, the veins
free, and the sori in a panicle or compound or rarely
simple spike. Sporangia naked, opening by a transverse
slit. Spores copious, sulphur-yellow.

ADDER’S TONGUE. Ophioglossum vulgatum

Rootstock erect, fleshy. Stem simple, two to
ten inches high, bearing one smooth, entire leaf about
midway, and a terminal spike embracing the sporangia,
coherent in two ranks on its edges. (Generic name from
the Greek meaning the tongue of a snake, in allusion
to the narrow spike of the sporangia.)